Why the President’s Latest Tax Reform Proposal Isn’t Even Nine Times Very Little
In April, the last time tax reform bubbled into the news cycle, we discouraged readers from paying much attention. President Trump’s “proposal” was this single page of bullet points that told us too little to evaluate its merit.
Tax reform returned to headlines this week, with the President offering this nine-page proposal.
If we use the “number-of-pages” method to evaluate work product, we might expect the new plan to include nine times as much meaningful information. Even if we discount the new document three and one-half pages for including a cover page and five pages only half-full of text, we might hope the new plan offers five and one-half times the information we gathered from April’s one-page plan.
It doesn’t. The new plan largely replicates the prior plan’s bullet points, adding some additional nontechnical explanation and a more impressive presentation format. It adds little, if anything.
Our advice hasn’t changed. Don’t get excited. Don’t exert energy seeking substance about tax reform just yet.